The Milk of Sorrow is a 2009 Peruvian film directed by Claudia Llosa.
The film opens with an old woman, Perpetua, singing a folk song—about how she was gang-raped by terrorists, and force-fed her murdered husband's penis, when she was pregnant. (This is a reference to the 1980-92 war between the Peruvian government and the Shining Path
.). Perpetua, having warbled this cheery ditty, promptly dies.
The focus then shifts to Perpetua's daughter, Fausta, who was gestating in her mother's womb when Perpetua was gang-raped. Twenty years of listening to her mother's horror stories have left Fausta a prisoner of fear. While not The Shut-In she doesn't particularly like to go outside, and she's mortally afraid of men, convinced that she may be raped and murdered at any moment. She has gone so far as to put a potato in her vagina, that's right, a potato in her vagina, as a deterrent against would-be rapists.
But Fausta has to get a job, because she has no money to bury her mother. So she takes a job as a domestic servant to Aida, a singer and apparently the richest person in town.
Tropes:
- Alone in a Crowd: The whole extended family poses for a picture at Maxima's wedding. Then after the photo everyone walks off, except for Fausta who remains standing there in front of the backdrop.
- Black Comedy:
- At Maxima's wedding someone peels a potato, and says that the long, narrow peel is proof that Maxima and her husband will have a long and happy marriage. This while, unbeknownst to most of the wedding crowd, Fausta has a potato stuffed up her private area.
- Later, the scent that Fausta and her potato are giving off leads a dog to follow her home, sniffing at her crotch the whole way.
- Body Horror: Fausta has a potato in her vagina. And it is growing. In a couple of scenes she is shown cutting off sprouts. The potato is, unsurprisingly, making her physically ill. She visits a doctor but she is so terrified of being raped that she can't bring herself to remove the potato.
- Comically Missing the Point: At the wedding, a friend of Fausta's cousin says that she's good-looking. The cousin tries to dissuade him, saying that Fausta has "the tit disease", that being a reference to the "milk of sorrow" myth. The admirer takes another look at Fausta, who is rather busty, and says "They look fine to me."
- Diegetic Switch: Fausta's song about the mermaid plays over the soundtrack as Fausta goes into Aida's study. Then she starts singing it herself, having finally mustered up the courage to sing for someone else.
- Downer Beginning: Perpetua sings a song about how she was gang-raped, and force-fed the penis of her freshly murdered husband, while she was pregnant. Then she dies.
- Hand Gag: Fausta's uncle resorts to some shock therapy to break her out of her terror and agoraphobia. He enters the room where Fausta is sleeping with her cousins and claps a hand over her mouth. As Fausta thrashes in terror, eventually running out of the room, her uncle (who is crying) says "See how you breathe? See how you want to live?"
- Jumping Out of a Cake: Mixed with Disturbed Doves, for Maxima's wedding. At the reception, the lid to the cake is removed, and a bunch of doves fly out from inside.
- Malicious Misnaming: The first time Aida meets Fausta she calls her by the name of the previous maid, and it seems like Aida might just be forgetful. But she keeps calling Fausta by the wrong name and eventually it becomes clear that she's putting Fausta in her place.
- Maybe Ever After: Right before the ending, the gardener stops by and leaves a flower in front of Fausta's house, suggesting that Fausta may find love after all.
- Ominous Hair Loss: A different spin on this trope. Fausta still has her mother's decaying corpse in the house, partly because she doesn't have the money for a coffin and partly because Fausta has some mental problems. She reaches up to stroke her mother's hair, and a hunk of it comes out in her hand, showing that the condition of her mother's body is deteriorating.
- Plagiarism in Fiction: Aida steals Fausta's mermaid song, and throws her out of the car when Fausta makes a comment about how the song went over well at the concert.
- Plot-Triggering Death: Her mother's death forces Fausta to end her existence as The Shut-In and go out and get a job.
- Title Drop: Fausta's family believes in "the milk of sorrow", a folk myth in which fearful, traumatized mothers who nurse children pass on their sorrow through their milk. Her uncle tells this story to her doctor, who is unimpressed.
- Writer's Block: Apparently a problem for Aida; when Fausta comes for her first day at work she sees a smashed piano that Fausta pushed out a window. Later, Aida steals Fausta's song.
- The X of Y: The Milk of Sorrow, referring to the folk belief that a nursing mother experiencing great sorrow will pass that sorrow onto her baby.
